XP: 3yr old having tonsillectomy this Wed., any tips?

booboo1414

DS has SPD with mild autism, and is having his tonsils and adinoids out this wednesday. Any tips on preparing him? He has a special blanket he sleeps with at night and a weighted blanket that we will be bringing with us to the hospital. Any other suggestions or recovery tips you might have would be awesome.Thanks Ladies! 

Justinlove

Poor guy.  LA had a T&A in June and it was not a fun recovery BUT was well worth it in the end.  Hope your little fellow has an easier time.

seethesmiles

My DS had his tonsils and adenoids out recently, too. I'm not going to lie -- it was a rough 2 weeks. BUT... totally worth it.

I prepped DS by explaining very simply what was going to happen: We are going to the hospital. We will check in and then the nurse will give you a bracelet with your name on it. Then you'll put on the silly jammies. Then the nurse will give you some sleepy juice and you'll fall asleep. While you are sleeping, the doctor will take your tonsils out.  When you wake up, your throat will be very sore. But it will get better, especially if you eat the popsicles (DS doesn't really like ice pops so I tried to stress that they'd make his throat feel better). I told him this several times and we did some role playing with his doctor's kit. My DS has problems with high anxiety and it was so helpful for him to know what was going to happen.

As far as recovery goes, stay on top of the pain meds. DS refused the tylenol with codeine right from the start. I had been told that it can really burn. So we just did motrin and it seemed to be okay, as long as we stayed on top of it. It really sucked waking him up at night but when we let him sleep until he woke up in pain, it was much worse.

Obviously, push the liquids. DS liked juice boxes better than the ice pops so that's what we went with. We also let DS have milk, even though most people will tell you not to give dairy for a few days. Our doctor said it was fine and that any liquid was better than no liquid.

Be prepared for the worst bad breath you'll ever smell. It lasted about two weeks and then went away but it was bad!

Other than that, just know that your DS will need lots of TLC. Our doctor told us DS would be "back to normal" in one week but it really took two full weeks for my DS to fully recover. Good luck! You'll be glad you did it when it's over!